Saturday, November 19, 2016

A recent visit to Mumbai, provided opportunity to see
this historic place!~ there was so much of crowd – busy in moving and reaching
their place, unmindful of its past glory !!!

At the start of
this year, read in newspapers of a deal, of largest Office space deal concluded
– a Software major signing up to pick up 19 lakh square feet for its biggest
office under one roof at Hiranandani Estate in Thane. It stated that it could
house around 30000 employees – a long term contract with the option of a reset
clause every three years. The monthly lease rental for the space was reportedly between Rs 50 and Rs 55 per sq ft and that the annual
lease rental for the property could be
in the range of Rs 120 crore to Rs 130 crore. Mindboggling ! – every city suburb nowadays
sees the mushrooming trend of backoffices of IT/ITES and other Service
industries including Insurance. The subject matter is not anything of property
or rental value but historic significance !

Many of us still
love the travel by train ~ not the hustle in an electric train – in olden days,
the first advice from elderly was not to be seated in window and look out – for
flying coal pieces could fall in eyes !! – those were the days of locomotives,
the engine that provided the motive power.
Locomotive originates from the
Latin loco – "from a place" + Medieval Latin motivus, "causing
motion", first used in the early 19th century to distinguish between
mobile and stationary steam engines. They did not have any payloads and had the
sole purpose of pulling the train along the tracks. Traditionally, locomotives pulled trains from
the front.

A steam locomotive
is derived its pulling power through a steam engine, fuelled by burning
combustible material—usually coal/coke, wood, or oil—to produce steam in a
boiler. The steam that was generated moved the pistons connected to the train
wheels. The first steam locomotive,
made by Richard Trevithick, first operated in
1804, three years after the road locomotive he made in 1801. Steam
locomotives were first developed in Great Britain during the early 19th century
and used for railway transport until the middle of the 20th century. From the
early 1900s they were gradually superseded by electric and diesel locomotives,
with full conversions to electric and diesel power beginning from the
1930s. In India, Indian Railways
decided to eliminate steam from regular running several years ago, and has
largely succeeded.

The most
well known locomotives could be the trio
called ‘Sahib, Sindh and Sultan’. These
three historic locomotives hauled the inaugural passenger train on 16th April, 1853 from Boribunder to Thane,
a distance of 21 miles. It appears that the first locomotives used solely for
construction came from Yorkshire – an experimental line was built from Kalyan
and in 1853 it was decided to have a terminus at Boribunder. The first passenger train chugged off, pulled
by the 3 engines and comprised of 20 railway carriages having around 400 guests
of honour. The journey lasted mere 75 minutes from 3.30 pm to 4.45 pm –
heralded by salute of 21 guns.

Some people on the
way side, ran out of the way shouting it to be a demon – for conceptually it
was new, though it was not the first ever train to run in Indian soil. The train service was from Bori Bunder to
Thane. Bori bunder used to be a
storehouse for imported goods and those awaiting shipment. Read that 'Bori' mean sack and 'Bandar'
means store; Bandar also means port;
Built by the Great Indian Peninsular Railway,
the station had the honour – it was not the last ever as it faded;
decades later, the station was rebuilt as the Victoria Terminus, named after
the then reigning Queen Victoria,
again renamed Chhatrapati Shivaji
Terminus (CSTM) after the famed
17th-century king. It is a very
important locaton – total 154 passenger trains Start/End/Pass through
Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus.

At the other end
was Thane (thana !) – a place that had a fort dating back to 18th century. It was a major port in 14th century and later
came under British occupation. A book titled
Making of India reveals that the idea of railway to connect first occurred to
George Clark and a meeting of prominent citizens wad held in Bombay in July
1844 – around which time, the Great Indian Peninsular Railway was formed in
England. When the first train reached
its destination Thana, refreshments were served in tents. The inaugural engines – Sultan, Sindh and
Sahib had been built at Vulcan Foundry near Manchester, and were from batch of
8 contracted. Later, Sultan was named
Lord Falkland as a token of respect of the then Governor of Bombay
Presidency. Vulcan Foundry claimed in
its leaflets, that they had the distinction of exporting first ever locomotives
to India.

The Railway line
was extended to Kalyan an year later and to Khapoli, a couple of years later.
As stated those were not the first engines nor was that inaugural run, first
ever in India, though it was the landmark first run of a passenger commercial
train in India.

Felt happy to visit
this station, walk around – people were busy, every train was so packed – there
were so many shops also around the station, in the roads leading to the
station. The recent demonetisation order had its impact for it was a day when
there were banks and people first felt the impact of higher value currencies
ceasing to be a legal tender. Here are
some photos of the place – the picture of a locomotive seen at the start of the
post, was taken in Railway Museum, Delhi. Not sure whether any one of those
(Sultan, Sind, Sahib) is languishing over there now.